This international conference is being organised by doctoral students for doctoral students and will consider how concepts of reading impact on different areas of research.

"Reading" is intended to be interpreted in a wide sense, to include the reading of, for example images, buildings, inscriptions, theatre, music or dance performances and other creative productions, as well as books and manuscripts.

Following the success of last year’s conference on ‘Constructing Identities’, this conference will represent a variety of disciplines including Architecture, Cultural Studies, English, Fine Art, History, Journalism, Modern Languages, Music, Philosophy, Politics, Religious Studies and Welsh, providing a framework for interdisciplinary cross-fertilisation.

Proposals for panels and papers are invited from PhD students across Wales and the UK. The deadline for proposals is 16 March 2007 and current panels include:

* Representations of Empire* Readerships - the impact of audience* Clothing and the Body* Reading the Land - urban/rural environments and archaeology* Reading the Media* Reading the Past - history and new historicism in literature* Reading Performance* Listening & the Oral Tradition - Music and the spoken word* Lost in Translation?* Off the Page - including inscriptions and embroidery* Between the Lines* Reading the Hand - manuscripts* Reading Gender

To convene a panel or submit a paper, please send a 300-word abstract of the paper’s contribution to the conference theme (with the panel title in the subject line) to Readingconference_at_cardiff.ac.uk. Papers should be 20 minutes maximum and proposals should include contact details and a brief biographical note.